Saturday, December 27, 2008

Here's something I meant to post earlier in the year: photos taken out of the car window on the ride in to work. (I was the passenger, no worries.)Traffic, traffic, traffic. Spend time at the lights looking at window decals. Someone tried their darnedest to scrape this one off. What does it say? "Never forgotten." Should've taken the hint, pal.

The streets are well-patrolled, especially near these familiar shops:

Looks like we'll be patrolling on foot today...And here, outside York College, we have the saddest-lookin' ice-cream truck in the world:

Oh, crap. I guess this street's closed again...

This railing, dressed as if for Mardi Gras, cheers the neighborhood up:

Finally, we arrive at work to find that someone has deposited a small pile of mulch, cotton wool, and bird feathers behind some of the books. Um, what the?

Saturday, December 20, 2008

The bare ribs of the summerhouse will be soaking up the sun of the winter solstice tomorrow morning at 7:04 Eastern Standard Time, and we should all take heart, because after that, the days will get longer. So although the solstice brings us the longest night of the year, and signals only the beginning of winter, it's also the light at the end of the tunnel, literally.

This time of year, the birds and I are both grateful for the sight of the Callicarpa japonica near my side door, whose bright-colored fruit always starts that CSNY song in my head: "Say can I have some of your purple berries

Yes, I've been eating them for

Six or seven weeks now, haven't got sick once,

Probably keep us both alive..."

Welcome the sun tomorrow, know that the garden needs its sleep too, and the wooden ships are on the water, very free and easy.

Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Will you look at that, it's next Tuesday already! Time flies when you're d*&!ing around on Facebook instead of, well, d#!*ing around on your blog.Anyway, it was a pretty exciting weekend, if you were me. Friday night we attended a high school drama production, which is one of my favorite things to do, as it is so earnest, so raw, so transparent, and so much more affordable than Broadway. Plus I usually know some of the actors. Always a cool thing. An extremely brief excerpt is posted here on YouTube, and here and here, thereby violating perhaps a half dozen codes of ethics.Then, on Saturday, the postman brought the issue of FiberArts magazine in which three of my photos are published! And in which accompanying article I am extensively quoted! (Indeed, quoted to a point which makes me feel I am owed a shared byline, but whatever.) It's not an online article or I'd link to it here. And good luck finding the magazine on your local newsstand; neither Barnes and Noble nor Borders seems to carry it. Perhaps that ginormous news purveyor in Penn Station has it; you know, the one opposite the LIRR ticket windows. What's the name of that one? Neil says it's Hudson News.

To clarify, per commenter's request: this was a one-page article on the NYC Easter Parade, which I posted about last spring. I didn't even post any bonnets, because Neil had done such a good job at that. But I put a few on my Flickr page and a freelancer found them and requested permission to use them in this article she was writing. Remuneration? Um, personal satisfaction and a couple copies of the magazine? I'm not good at making money. But here's one of the photos, and there are others still on Flickr, keyword "Easter" on my page. Then, on Sunday, we had the attic insulated, some flooring laid down up there, and an attic ladder installed for access to it all! More news on that later. But first, I have to go put in the brackets for the basement window shades. I tell you, the excitement never ends.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

The first snow this winter fell last night, but didn't interfere with the running this morning of DH's first official race, a 4-mile run benefiting the Lynbrook community. He came in 286th out of a field of 484, with a very respectable time of 39 minutes, 7 seconds. Pretty darn good for his first competition!The Lynbrook Middle School ,where the race began and ended, was open and full of sponsor tables handing out water, fruit, and little giveaways. Kenny went inside while I waited at the finish line for a few more minutes to watch other people coming in. Then I went inside to look for him. Hm.... he's not in front of the tables full of apples and bananas...or looking over the various awards and raffle baskets. Where could he be? Oh, of course... collecting the best swag of all: the complimentary massage!